Tim Ward is the author of the newly released Savage Breast: One Man's Search for the Goddess. (O-Books, March 2006). This is the first book that explores the Goddess from an explicitly male perspective, and how the loss of the feminine divine has affected men and women’s relationships. Tim believes it is in men's enlightened self interest to work together with women to move beyond patriarchy, and this is the conversation he will engage his audiences in as he shares his experience of exploring Goddess sites and ruins of the ancient Europe throughout 2006-07. Please come join in the dialogue. His events are listed below. His previous books are : Arousing the Goddess: Sex and Love in the Buddhist Ruins of India (where he first encountered the Goddess) What the Buddha Never Taught (about life in a Thai Monastery), and the Greast Dragon's Fleas (his search for living Bodhisattvas). Tim is a Canadian; he lived with his family in Maryland, where he teaches communications courses.

For media review copies or to arrange an interview or event with the author, please contact:

What would happen if a man encountered the Goddess? To find out Tim Ward set out on a three-year journey to reconnect with the lost goddesses of his European ancestors— a personal Da Vinci Code quest. Exploring the ruined temples and shrines of the sacred feminine Ward discovered not only what men lost when they buried their goddesses, but how this loss affects their relationships with women. With slideshow.

To celebrate the publication Traveler’s Tales Best Travel Writing 2006, Tim Ward joins other authors, and will read from the chapter of Savage Breast chosen for this “best of” collection.

Book Passage

51 Tamal Vista Blvd.

Corte Madera, MarinCounty

415-931-9248

www.bookpassage.com

March 20, 7 p.m. Author Talk, Petaluma

What would happen if a man encountered the Goddess? To find out Tim Ward set out on a three-year journey to reconnect with the lost goddesses of his European ancestors— a personal Da Vinci Code quest. Exploring the ruined temples and shrines of the sacred feminine Ward discovered not only what men lost when they buried their goddesses, but how this loss affects their relationships with women.

Celebrate the Equinox! Join in a dialogue with authors Kathy Jones (Ancient British Goddesses) and Tim Ward (Savage Breast: One Man's Search for the Goddess) on the role of the sacred feminine in helping men and women co-create a better future.

What would happen if a man encountered the Goddess? To find out Tim Ward set out on a three-year journey to reconnect with the lost goddesses of his European ancestors— a personal Da Vinci Code quest. Exploring the ruined temples and shrines of the sacred feminine Ward discovered not only what men lost when they buried their goddesses, but how this loss affects their relationships with women. With slideshow.

Experiential workshop led by author Tim Ward (Savage Breast: One Man's Search for the Goddess). Ward talks about his journeys through ancient temples and sacred places of the Goddess, and how this healed his relationships with women. Participants engage in a meditative sculpting exercise designed to intimately connect them--male and female--to the feminine divine. No artistic experience required. Talk, free; workshop: $15-25 fee.

March 26: 10:30 a.m. Service talk, followed by 1 p.m. workshop,Berkeley Unitarian/Universalist Fellowship

Experiential workshop led by author Tim Ward (Savage Breast: One Man's Search for the Goddess). Ward talks about his journeys through ancient temples and sacred places of the Goddess, and how this healed his relationships with women. Participants engage in a meditative sculpting exercise designed to intimately connect them--male and female--to the feminine divine. No artistic experience required. For workshop only: $15-25 fee.

What would happen if a man encountered the Goddess? To find out Tim Ward set out on a three-year journey to reconnect with the lost goddesses of his European
ancestors—a personal Da Vinci Code quest. Exploring the ruined temples and shrines of the sacred feminine Ward discovered not only what men lost when they buried their
goddesses, but how this loss affects their relationships with women. With slideshow.

What would happen if a man encountered the Goddess? To find out Tim Ward set out on a three-year journey to reconnect with the lost goddesses of his European
ancestors—a personal Da Vinci Code quest. Exploring the ruined temples and shrines of the sacred feminine Ward discovered not only what men lost when they buried their
goddesses, but how this loss affects their relationships with women. With slideshow.

SaybrookGraduateSchool and ResearchCenter
747 Front Street (at the corner of Broadway), San Francisco
3rd Floor in the Rollo May Library. $10 per ticket. Seating is limited.
RSVP to Terry Hopper (415) 394-5220

Tim Ward is the author of Savage Breast (2005), Arousing the Goddess (2003), The Great Dragon's Fleas (1993) and What the Buddha Never Taught (1990)--which was a Book-of-the-Month selection in the United States. His books have been described as "spiritual journalism," and "diabolically funny." He has been published in seven countries in five languages. Ward spent six years in South and East Asia, and his travels have been the inspiration for his critically acclaimed books. For Savage Breast, he traveled 13 times to the Mediterranean region, with the help of a Canada Council Writers Grant. Tim Ward is also president of Intermedia Communications Training Inc.. He lives in Maryland with his family.

In 2006, Tim Ward will deliver public talks and workshops throughout the U.S, Canada and the U.K. If your organizations wishes to schedule and event or conduct a media interivew, please contact: timici@aol.com

Event Descriptions:3 Public Talks and One Workshop

Lecture 1:Savage Breast:One Man's Search for the Goddess

What the ancient Goddesses reveal about modern men's unconscious need for, fear of, and anger towards women: how this poisons relationships, and how to begin to heal them.

What would it be like for a modern man to encounter ancient goddesses? To find out, author Tim Ward traveled to the cradles of Western Civilization: to Greece, Crete, Turkey, Israel, Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Yugoslavia, France, Cyprus and Malta. Ward walked through the ruins of the goddesses’ temples, and gazed at her statues and icons, searching for a resonance. He writes: "Just as a harp string will vibrate if another instrument strikes an identical note, I hoped the images created by his ancestors could bring to life a corresponding echo within me."

In the lecture, Ward recounts his encounters with ancient goddess, and shows color images of his photographs of goddess statues, icons and temples. He explains how he came to understand these goddesses as powerful archetypes of the feminine. He writes: "Facing the goddess allowed me to unleash emotions so threatening and painful I never could have imagined expressing them directly to a real woman. It opened doors that I had long nailed shut. It’s one thing to contemplate the goddess as metaphysical idea or a Jungian archetype, but when the feminine divine took shape inside my psyche, she often terrified me, evoking desperate longing, hostility, fear, shame — and also incredible beauty."

Ward discusses what his encounters with Goddesses revealed to him about modern men's unconscious need for,fear of, and anger towards women: how this poisons relationships, and how to begin to heal them.

Questions for discussion:

Is "Goddess" any different from "God in a skirt"?

How is the anima activated and affected by goddess archetypes?

How has Western culture changed when the Church outlawed goddesses, and how has this affected relationships between men and women?

What's the connection between falling in love and the divine feminine?

Some writers and social commentators have discerned "a pervasive fear, hatred and contempt towards women in our culture." If this is so, how can we change it?

Lecture 2:Women in Prehistory: what this means to modern men and women as we move beyond patriarchy -- a male point of view.

Presenter: Tim Ward, author of Savage Breast: One Man's Search for the Goddess.

Length: 60-90 minutes

Were men always the leaders in society? Is the current trend towards women's rights a brand new social experiment, or a return to an older, more gender-balanced way of life? A close look at the statues, drawings of women from prehistory suggests women once wielded considerable authority. For example there are:

women seated on thrones

shaman-like women wearing masks

women presiding over religious rites

clusters of women sitting in councils

women at the center of scenes of worship

sacred sites that seem modeled on the female body.

In Bronze Age Crete, written evidence that the ruler in the Palace of Knossos was called "The Lady."

Author Tim Ward discusses the archeological finds and the ongoing controversy over the authority of women in prehistoric times. He provides a refreshingly candid male point of view on what it means for a man let go of patriarchy, and what it takes to co-create a future where men and women are genuine equals. There will be plenty of time for presumably lively discussion.

Lecture 3. Goddess in a Business Suit:Athena, Archetype of the Woman Professional.

Presenter: Tim Ward, author of Savage Breast: One Man's Search for the Goddess.

Length: 60-90 minutes

The Greek Goddess of War and Reason, Athena -- strong, intelligent, ready to fight for her cause -- seems the perfect archetype for the modern professional woman. Like the goddess who as born by bursting through the head of Zeus, women in recent decades have indeed burst through patriarchal Western culture and into the public domain. Yet the glass ceiling remains, as does sexual harassment and unequal pay. Even the president of Harvard University has publicly speculated about the deficiencies of women in leadership positions in math and science. A closer look at Athena can tell us much about the unconscious forces at work today in both men and woman as we adapt to the increasing power and voice of women. How will the resurrection of the spirit of Athena in living women affect our relationships, marriages, and children?

"Athena can be seen as a goddess of skillful adaptation, one who twists her strength into the male mold in order to wield power in an environment that's often hostile to women. Athena, after all, is the only deity Zeus trusts enough to allow her to hurl his thunderbolt. But like that thunderbolt, much of women’s power in today’s world is still derived from men, and it is still used to carry out men’s purposes....Like Athena, women can most easily succeed in politics, business, science and academia by playing a man’s game in what remains a man’s world. So, while modern women may find in Athena a way to burst into the world of men, they can easily be trapped in their armor and in their role in the service of Zeus."--Author Tim Ward, Savage Breast, One Man's Search for the Goddess

Questions for discussion:

What causes a woman, consciously or unconsciously, to emulate Athena?

What triggers a man's projection of the Athena archetype onto a woman?

Athena's relationships with other women

Athena's strategies for exerting influence over men

Men's responses to Athena in the workplace--is she really "one of the boys?"

Does Athena work towards female solidarity, or against it?

How can professional women evolve beyond the Athena archetype

Workshop: Goddess: Image, Archetype, and Anima (3-4 hours).

Facilitator: Author Tim Ward

Length: 3-4 hours

This workshop is an experiential encounter with images of the goddess, from 20,000 BC to the present, and the archetypes of the feminine.

“Every man carries within him the eternal image of woman, not the image of this or that particular woman, but a definite feminine image...an imprint or ‘archetype’ of all the ancestral experiences of the female." -- Carl Jung (from “Marriage as a Psychological Relationship,” The Development of Personality, CW 17, par.338.)

Part 1: The workshop begins with a series of images of the goddess (from photos taken by author Tim Ward) discovered in Paleolithic caves in France and Neolithic excavations in Turkey, Greece, Malta, and the Balkans, as well as the magnificent frescos of Minoan Crete and the marble sculptures of classical Greece. Ward discusses how his own journey to find and photograph the sacred feminine changed his relationships with flesh and blood women.

Part 2: Participants are invited to reflect on the significance of the feminine in their lives, and share their responses to these images of goddesses. Ward will also speak about what it means for a man to experience these archetypal images of women in the light of Jung's concept of the anima. He discusses the difference between the operation of anima in men and the anima in women, and why it is difficult for men to become aware of their animas.

Part 3: Workshop participants are given the opportunity to sculpt in clay a statue of some aspect of the divine feminine evoked by the images they have experienced. In the course of his own research, Ward found it difficult to put into words his true emotional responses to ancient goddess icons. But he discovered he could tap into these feelings by molding clay. No previous artistic experience is required for this...in fact, non-artists will find the exploration most revealing.

Participants should bring a notepad and pen. Clay and molding tools provided.

Author Event and Book Information:

While on tour in 2004, author Tim Ward can deliver an optional slide show together with a talk about his new book. Information on the event follows, and then a brief overview of the book.

Living Goddesses of India:

Overview:Author Tim Ward discusses his new book,Arousing the Goddess: Sex and Love in the Buddhist Ruins of India, accompanied by a slide show that offers a rare glimpse of ancient goddess rituals, little-known Indian festivals and sacred goddess sites.

Event Description: Ward begins his the evening with his own story, as recounted in Arousing the Goddess. Drawn to India initially in order to study Buddhism and come to grips with the problem of human suffering, Ward was quite surprised to find that the Goddess plays a pivotal in Buddha's enlightenment -- immortalized in the legend of "The Earth Touching Gesture." This discovery hurtles the would-be monk to a life-changing experience love and passion with an alluring Austrian Indologist, as they travel to many Buddhist sites and ruins. Ward candidly and humorously describes his own struggles between the Buddhist path of renouncing desire, or the Goddess's path of embracing it fully.

Ward returned to India a decade later, this time to document and photograph the living Goddess in India found in little known shrines and statues, as well as tribal rituals and dance. He also discusses the paradoxically low status of women in a country that still venerates the feminine divine. A Q&A session follows.Some elements of the slide presentation:

A "Rites of Spring" tribal festival that reenacts the mourning of the goddess' death, complete with goat sacrifices, mock child-trampling, and painful acts of ritual devotion

A Bihari village's ancient magical ceremony for containing the destructive energies of Kaliyuga.

Tribal "Chhau" dances at a festival, in honor of the Goddess Durga killing a demon.

10th Century erotic temples of Khajuraho, with explanations of their function as a metaphor for the union of the Masculine and Feminine Divine

Rare images from Madhya Pradesh from one of the few remaining circular goddess temples of the 64 Yoginis (10th Century), including close-ups of individual yogini statues.

At the Canadian release of Arousing the Goddess, this event attracted 500 people at the Vancouver Library, and 350 people at the National Library in Ottawa. 100 people attended the evetn launch at the Smithsonian's Sackler Gallery in Washington D.C.

About the Book:AROUSING THE GODDESS: Sex and Love in the Buddhist Ruins of India by Tim Ward.

"His story of love and passion dances lyrically between earthly desire and the outer realms of the spirit. He finds illumination in all things and all passions, and his beautiful books encourage us to do the same." -- Wade Davis, author of One River

"Arousing the Goddess is a mystical, erotic and true story of a young man's sexual and spiritual awakening in India. Author Tim Ward spent two years traveling through the most remote parts of India and the Far East.Drawn to India initially in order to study Buddhism and come to grips with the problem of human suffering, Ward was quite surprised to find that the Goddess plays a pivotal in Buddha's enlightenment -- immortalized in the legend of "The Earth Touching Gesture." This discovery hurtles the would-be monk to a life-changing experience love and passion with an alluring Austrian Indologist, as they travel to many Buddhist sites and ruins. Ward candidly and humorously describes his own struggles between the Buddhist path of renouncing desire, or the Goddess's path of embracing it fully.

"If you are interested in how your heart and soul and guts work in the world, you simply must read Arousing the Goddess, the work of a first rate writer and wanderer" --James O'Reilly, Publisher, Travelers' Tales

"Diabolically funny at times, this is also a brave, wise and brilliant book." -- The Toronto Star (Canada)

"One man's intimate encounter with the goddess in all her phases. Honest and brutal when it comes to sharing his soul, Tim Ward's lifescapes of exotic India are brilliantly painted as the tale unfolds, and a woman becomes his religion. There is an echo here of every woman's wild cosmic fling, whether real or fantasized. To hear it with such candor from a man is unexpected and gloriously refreshing." - Linda Eneix, author of The Temple Builders

"Ward tackles humanity's greatest ongoing challenge, which I've never seen anyone do so well. He brings masculine and feminine (both divine, mysterious and powerful) together in a healing, life-affirming way." -- Melanie Choukas-Bradley, author of City of Trees.

"The process of acquiring wisdom provides the narrative with its dramatic muscle...risky, bracing stuff." -- Charles Foran, author of House on Fire

"This book is, in fact, about learning. Its great strength, aside from its finely crafted prose, is Ward's honesty about what learned…The process of acquiring wisdom provides the narrative with its dramatic muscle." --The Globe and Mail (Canada)

"It contains a great deal of food for thought in a spiritually anorexic time, and it is beautifully written." --Quill and Quire (Canada)